Friday, January 30, 2009

Obama's go-it-alone foreign policy

After many years of the US closely coordinating with Europe on a policy to deter Iran's development of nuclear weapons, Pres. Obama is reportedly planning to abandon our allies and engage Iran unilaterally. Worse, it is rumored that Obama's letter give Iran "assurances" that there will be no meaningful consequences for their pursuit of nuclear weapons:

State department officials have composed at least three drafts of the letter, which gives assurances that Washington does not want to overthrow the Islamic regime, ....

Separately, the Democrats reportedly plan to start a trade war with the European Union. As the (UK) Telegraph reports:

The EU trade commissioner vowed to fight back after the bill passed in the House of Representatives late on Wednesday included a ban on most purchases of foreign steel and iron used in infrastructure projects. ....

A spokesman for Catherine Ashton, the EU trade commissioner, said: "We are looking at the situation. The one thing we can be absolutely certain about, is if a bill is passed which prohibits the sale or purchase of European goods on American territory, that is something we will not stand idly by and ignore."

The anti-trade provisions were part of the unprecedented $800 billion pork-barrel spending that was passed in the Democrat-controlled House. Pleasingly, the opposition was bi-partisan: all Republicans were joined by 10 Democrats.